What Does Luke 22:23 Mean?
And they began to question one another, which of them it was who was about to do this.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And they began to enquire among themselves, which of them it was that should do this thing.THE KEY
The announcement of betrayal does not make the betrayer obvious; it turns the whole circle into a question.
THE MEANING
When betrayal is named in your own circle, the question can turn inward before the person responsible is known. The threatened act is real, while its agent remains uncertain.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that betrayal comes with an obvious face: even those closest to the disclosure do not know which of them is about to act.
THE ROOT
συζητεῖν
syzētein
GROWS FROM
ζητ-
zēt-
To seek or search for; συζητεῖν (syzētein) means to seek together, inquire together.
The Greek form συζητεῖν (syzētein), “to seek together,” makes this more than one person asking a question: the uncertainty becomes a shared search. English “enquire” can hide that the whole circle is trying to locate the unknown actor among them.
ALSO GROWS
zētēsis: A question or inquiry.
ζήτησις
This branch makes the searching quality of their question visible: they are investigating who will do it.
ekzēteō: To seek out or search for something.
ἐκζητέω
The same seed appears in searching for what is not yet found; here, the group searches for the person hidden within its own circle.
THE PATTERN
When an unseen action or meaning unsettles a group, understanding begins as a question shared among them.
And the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin, saying, What harm is this that is done among you?Then the disciples looked at one another, without a way through, uncertain of whom he spoke.Now when the high priest and the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these things, they had no way across concerning them, asking where this would come to.THE THREAD
And they held that word among themselves, seeking together with one another what the standing up from the dead could mean.Both verses use συζητέω (syzēteō), “seek together”: here the disciples seek the betrayer, while in Mark they seek the meaning of rising from the dead. The shared verb holds the act of inquiry constant while its object changes from suspicion to mystery.
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